NATO leaders agreed this week to increase defense spending by tens of billions of dollars. This follows U.S. strikes against Iran authorized by President Donald Trump.
New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen is the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa spoke with Shaheen about those strikes and her time at the NATO summit this week.
Transcript
You said earlier this week you'd like to see President Trump consult more closely with Congress on Iran. Has there been any shift in communication in recent days? Has anything changed?
Well, the Senate did get an all-senators briefing this afternoon from the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the head of the CIA, and General [Dan] Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs [of Staff]. That was a very helpful briefing and followed on what was a public press conference this morning at the Department of Defense.
And can you share a little bit more about what you learned in that briefing?
Well, it was classified, Julia, so I can't share a lot. But what I can say is that, first of all, as I have said in the past, we know that given Iran's activities in support of terrorism across the Middle East for Hezbollah, and for Hamas and for the Houthis, and their attempts to assassinate American officials, that they have been a promoter of activities that mean that we should not allow them to have a nuclear weapon. That's been the position of both Republican and Democratic administrations going back to President Clinton. And I think the strikes have significantly set back Iran's nuclear program in a way that is important.
Now, obviously, they still have knowledge of enrichment and they have nuclear scientists. They have the ability to rebuild at some point if they choose to do that. So the best long term solution is to get them back to the negotiating table.
And just overall, Senator, how do you feel President Donald Trump is handling the conflict between Israel and Iran?
Well, I'm pleased that he pushed for a ceasefire, and I'm pleased that we were involved in setting back Iran's nuclear program. I'm disappointed that he didn't consult with Congress, because I think Congress is an important check on the executive.
And how do you see the U.S. relationship with Israel at this point and our position within the region overall?
Well, I think Israel has been very pleased about the action that the United States took on Iran's nuclear program.
And Israel's pivot to Iran has dominated the headlines in the last two weeks. But at the same time, Israel has continued its attacks on Gaza and the death toll of Palestinians continues to rise there. Should President Trump have a stronger hand in trying to resolve that conflict?
Well, I hope so. I hope he is willing to take Prime Minister Netanyahu to task for the lack of humanitarian aid that's going to the Palestinians in Gaza. We know that so many of them are on the verge of starvation and famine in Gaza, and we need to see humanitarian assistance so that that does not happen. And I think the president is in a strong position to have influence with the prime minister.
Senator, as we said earlier, you were at the NATO summit this week, and the member nations of NATO endorsed a plan to massively ramp up defense spending up to 5% of their country's GDP by 2035. And this follows months of pressure from President Trump. What do you make of that decision?
I think that was a positive decision, and I think it came not just because of President Trump, but significantly because of Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which made the Europeans recognize they need to do much more to address their own defense. And I was pleased to hear the positive response from the European officials that we met with about making this decision, about stepping up, and also about thinking about how we better utilize funding that's spent on defense.
There was a great deal of interest in continuing support for Ukraine, and how we can do that in a way that ensures they are able to be successful on the battlefield because they are, in fact, fighting for democracies around the world. We heard a great deal of interest in legislation that we have pending in the Senate by Senators [Lindsey] Graham and [Richard] Blumenthal that has 82 bipartisan sponsors that would put dramatic and massive sanctions on those people who do business with Russia, particularly those who are buying oil from the shadow fleet. I think that would be very positive in putting pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table.
Senator, to follow up, do you think it is a realistic ask for some countries, even for the U.S., to ramp up defense spending by this degree? Last year, we spent just over 3% of our GDP on defense.
Well, last year we spent 3.4% on defense. And the way the 5% is structured, 3.5% is for military hardware, and the 1.5% is for infrastructure support for defense. So the United States is almost there. I suspect we will be there by the end of this year. We are spending 1.5%, arguably, on a lot of training infrastructure that can go to that 5%. So I think we are almost there. We have a number of other NATO allies that are getting very close — Poland, the Baltic states. So I do think it's realistic. And what we heard — we actually met with a group of Dutch parliamentarians, and I asked them how they felt and how their constituents felt about this idea that Europe would take over a greater responsibility for its own defense. And they were unequivocal in saying, absolutely, we should have done that 30 years ago. So I thought that was very positive. And people, the leaders that we met with, whether it was the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, or the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, they were all very positive about this development.
And Senator, briefly, any other takeaways from the summit this week?
I think the important message out of the summit was not just the 5% increase in defense spending. It was continued support for Ukraine. It was a unified message coming from the United States, from all of the 32 NATO allies about the importance of NATO, about the importance of article five in NATO, and about continuing to keep troop deployments on the eastern flank of NATO, so Eastern Europe to serve as a deterrent against Russia. One of the things that we know is that deterrents work very well. And so continuing to do that is very important, and to send a unified message about the strength of the NATO alliance to our adversaries, whether that's Vladimir Putin or President Xi [Jinping] in China. The Iranians obviously got that message after last weekend — and the North Koreans.
